Alpaca Care

There are many different ideas and ways to medically care for alpacas.  With all of the information out there, we like to take the common sense approach.  If care is taken in knowing individual alpacas, they can tell you a lot about their needs.  We have noticed that most of the white alpacas require more attention paid to trimming their nails.  Most of the dark alpacas don’t seem to require that need as often.  That does not mean that you will not end up with the odd animal that breaks the rule.

While many do CDT vaccinations for the girls after they give birth, when appropriate, we do them on their birthdays.  It is not recommended that vaccines or worming be done in the first or last sixty days of pregnancy.  For those girls that birthdays fall in these sixty-day windows, we simply hold off until they are not in those windows.

We did invest in fecal evaluation equipment.  This includes a high-powered microscope and centrifuge.  As it can get quite costly to send regular fecal samples to the veterinarian, we felt it would much more cost effective to purchase this equipment.  If there is any question as to the results our local vet is there to help.  Having the ability to do these fecal evaluations we can gear our worming program to necessity and not blanketing without necessity.  Since over-worming can cause drug resistance, we believe that treatment should be done when a parasite is present.  This is also a cost factor as well.

Although we like to do many of the common medical procedures ourselves, we do not hesitate to call for help if we are unsure of a situation.  Always build a good relationship with your veterinarian(s).  Be sure that you are prepared with your alpacas when the vet arrives and always pay your bill on time!

Permission has been given by Pamela Walker, DVM, for a downloadable veterinarian alpaca care guidelines. Click Here

Care for Tanner's Leg Condition

Tanner was born with restricted tendons in the knee of his front right leg. It was determined that this was not a congenital issue but because of restricted movement in the womb. Surgery was required to straighten the leg.

He started with a hard cast which covered his foot. The biggest concern was if the blood vessels in the leg would stretch enough and not snap, resulting in the loss of the limb. When the cast was removed, the vessels had survived and circulation to the foot was in tact.

The next step was to keep the leg stable with a splint and allow the open incision to form skin and close the wound. Thanks to our next door neighbor who is a surgical podiatrist, she provided a patch which accelerated healing. On Tanner's weekly visits to OSU Vet School, his surgeon was very happy with his progress. Tanner was moving so well that when he would slap his foot down, he did it so hard that he broke the splint. When the incision site was healed our neighbor fashioned a leg brace that would stabilize the leg while allowing it to be open and have limited mobility.

Tanner has now graduated to only having soft support. Although he will never have a bendable knee, he is happy and active out in the pasture with the other two boys- running, galloping and, on occasion, even pronking.

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In Spring of 2008, we found Bridger with an obviously broken leg.  His leg was in a cast for 12 weeks and healed wonderfully.  Contact us for further information on handling a broken leg.